Tea Party turns up the volume on Foster

BATAVIA -- Susan Moss of Yorkville is a medical administrator who works with both the state and Kane County medical societies.

Her years of experience in the field led her to some grave concerns about current reform plans offered in Washington. She's concerned about incentivizing small business and about the future of a government program she relies on.

"As an older citizen, I'm personally concerned about Medicare, how it's going to survive this," Moss said.

But when the shouting started at the Tea Party rally outside U.S. Rep. Bill Foster's district office Thursday afternoon, Moss and other members of the group were drowned out by louder voices screaming that the representative, President Obama and former St. Charles Mayor Sue Klinkhamer, now a Foster staffer, were all "Communists."

Thursday saw a Tea Party overtake the street outside Foster's downtown Batavia office. A group of about 30 to 40 area citizens concerned about taxes joined the rally.

Although it coincided with several such actions across the nation, including a GOP-led "Super Bowl of Freedom" in Washington, D.C., local Tea Partiers said the movement has no leaders nor organization.

"This is people who have come here basically off the Internet who are tired of government spending money it doesn't have and making promises it can't possibly keep," said St. Charles resident Chris Baldwin, who was carrying a sign opposing not only what it referred to as "Obamacare," but card check rules and cap-and-trade programs.

Kim Miller, of St. Charles, said she is tired of media portrayals of her group.

"Radical. Always portrayed as radical, like we're being told what to do," she said.

Aurora Tea Party Patriot founder Sherry Pierce said most of the people heard about the event through the Web sites of Illinois Tea, Midwest Conservatives, FairTax and her group.

After one protester went into the office to demand someone address the group, the group then heckled the staffers who did come to address them. A few people began shouting that various politicians were "Communists" and calling Foster a "dirty" politician.

"Doesn't (Foster) have the decency to come out here himself instead of sending you out here?" said a sign-wielding woman, pumping her fist in the air.

"He's in Washington," Klinkhamer said.

"Oh," said the woman, who later yelled that the problem was prayer had been removed from school.

When staffers and some Tea Partiers asked the crowd to put down their names and grievances on the office's visitor form, crowd members debated whether to sign.

Some said the group should sign to show Foster the size of the crowd. Others said they were concerned about giving their names, saying they did not want the office to have what amounted to a list of who protested.

In response to the protest, Foster's office released a list of 151 health care-related events Foster held this year. Foster has spent 43 hours reading the Affordable Health Care for America Act, which the House is expected to vote on shortly.